Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has had discussions with US company Neuroflex, who are creating a virtual reality headset to determine pitch-side whether rugby players have suffered a brain injury; and if he will bring forward legislative proposals to make use of that technology mandatory at matches to support faster diagnosis of brain injury.

My Department has had no such discussions with Neuroflex.

The safety, wellbeing and welfare of everyone taking part in sport is absolutely paramount. National Governing Bodies are responsible for the regulation of their sports and for ensuring that appropriate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, including serious injuries. With that in mind, we expect sports to do all they can to protect their players as a fundamental part of their duty of care.

To that end, the Secretary of State and I hosted two roundtables on concussion in sport recently to understand the issues from the perspectives of players and to push the sports on what more they can be doing. The Government remains committed to working with sports to build on the positive work that is already taking place, including the use of technology.